Description: Jason Gurney was a sculptor living and working in Chelsea when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936. After a brief period of training the British Battalion of 600 men was thrown straight into the front line at Jarama and was disastrously overwhelmed. Two-thirds of their numbers were killed on the first day. Although Gurney was in Spain for only nine months before being invalided home (his right hand was so badly shattered he was never again able to work as a sculptor), his experiences – inadequate training, squalid billets, useless weapons, incompetent leadership – bear graphic witness to what those serving with the Brigades had to endure. His account of the fighting – horrifying, moving, always utterly convincing – makes a real contribution to the literature of war.